Easter Flight

It turned out to be a more exciting Easter weekend than we had planned. Chip had invited us for lunch after church, then John Ellenberg offered to fly us from Greenville to Newberry in his twin-engine Beechcraft Baron to visit the parents. Glynda, Chip, and I took John up on his offer.

We took off from Greenville with me in the co-pilot seat and Glynda and Chip in the back. The Baron is a fast airplane, and our projected flight time was about 15-20 minutes. Of course, we made a couple of quick detours, flying over John’s house and a couple of other locations. I tried snapping pictures along the way, as well as shooting a little video with my Nikon S50.

I didn’t have my Garmin GPS, but was able to grab my older Magellan 315. At one point it indicated that we were flying at 230 mph. The ride was bumpy, but not intolerable. We landed in Newberry and were met by my nephew, Joshua, who drove us on down to Prosperity.

After a couple of hours with the parents, we headed back. On the return flight, I sat in the back with Glynda, and it actually gave me more opportunities for photography. I tried to catch some of the large tracks of forest just outside of Newberry, as well as the urban sprawl that plagues Greenville. We did a low fly-by of John’s neighborhood and air strip on the way home.

Upon landing, John dropped us off at the Greenville Downtown Airport then flew on back to his own airfield.

The rest of the photos from this set can be seen here. I took the video and edited it into a short YouTube clip.

There is a point to mentioning the type of camera and GPS. I am constantly analyzing and evaluating the equipment I carry. Others read this blog for recommendations on gear, so I try to mention what I find that works and doesn’t work. First, the Nikon s50 is a tiny pocket camera that produces amazingly good video for something of its size. Secondly, the Magellan 315 is an older unit. It doesn’t write a time stamp into the GPX file like the Garmin does, so it was impossible to geotag the images when I got home. I’d meant to put that into the post, but forgot until your rather blunt comment.